Four centuries after the establishment of the Congregation of the Mission, there is no doubt that the charism of St. Vincent de Paul continues to enrich the Church through the varied apostolates and good works of the entire Vincentian Family. It is my hope that the celebrations of this centenary will highlight the importance of St. Vincent’s spirit of service to Christ in the poor for the renewal of the Church of our time in missionary discipleship and closeness to the needy and abandoned in the many peripheries of our world and on the margins of a superficial and throwaway culture . [1]
These words of Pope Francis, addressed to Fr Tomaž Mavrič, Superior General, on the occasion of the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the foundation of the Congregation of the Mission, encourage us to reflect on our mission as we enter our fifth century of life.
The beginning of our fifth century coincides with the Holy Year 2025; with the motto “pilgrims of hope“, the Jubilee reminds us that Christian hope is founded on faith and expressed in the exercise of charity, pushing us towards a more universal Church with a greater commitment to evangelisation. For this Jubilee Year, which seeks to nourish our hope, reminds us that each new step in the life of the Church is a return to the source, a renewed experience of the encounter with the Risen One .[2]
In this communication I would like to highlight five aspects of our Mission in the Church today, based on the conviction, expressed in the words of Pope Francis, that the charism of St. Vincent de Paul continues to enrich the Church through the varied apostolates and good works of the entire Vincentian Family.
1.- PERSEVERE IN THE PRACTICE OF JESUS
In the synagogue of Nazareth[3] and from the texts of the prophet Isaiah (The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the poor…), Jesus defines his mission by giving the words of the prophet a programmatic value at the beginning of his public ministry. Vincent de Paul found here the motto of his own life and of the Congregation, called to prolong the existence and mission of Jesus Christ when he was on earth: to evangelise the poor: to work and teach, like Jesus Christ, the words and deeds foretold by the prophets . [4]
As a portico of the Common Rules, given by St Vincent de Paul to the missionaries in 1658, we find an engraving which shows the meaning of the mission of Jesus Christ, which is also our mission.
Sicut misit me Pater, et ego mitto vos: As the Father has sent me, so I send you (John, 20, 21). The radiance coming from the Father helps us to understand the mission of the Son, who is the most important (and also the greatest figure in the engraving). The Holy Spirit, represented by the dove, remains on Jesus. The hands of Jesus show us the double direction of the Mission: towards heaven, because the evangeliser announces the Good News that comes from God, his Kingdom; and towards his brothers, horizontally, because salvation and the Kingdom of God reaches everyone.
The two small scenes in the upper background show the two dimensions of salvation: on the left, the proclamation of the Word of God; on the right, the healing of the sick: to serve the poor corporally and spiritually, in the expression of Saint Vincent[5] . These are the works of Jesus Christ, and they are also the works of his disciples.
The disciples, placed around Jesus, accept the mission he entrusts to them. The members of the Congregation, missionary disciples[6] , continue the Mission of Jesus: As the Father has sent me, so I send you.
The final inscription: circuibant per castella evangelizantes: They went from village to village proclaiming the Good News (Luke 9,6), helps us to situate the mission of the Congregation as a prolongation in time of the Mission of Jesus Christ and of the apostolic community.
Each chapter of the Common Rules establishes a relationship of continuity between the Mission of Jesus Christ and that of the members of the Congregation of the Mission. St. Vincent de Paul proposes that we acquire the virtues and practice the evangelical teachings that Jesus Christ practised and taught, that he has tried to “draw them all from the spirit of Jesus Christ and derive them from the actions of his life…, considering that those who have been called to continue the mission of the Saviour himself, which consists principally in evangelising the poor, must enter into his sentiments and teachings, be filled with his same spirit and walk in his same footsteps”[7] .
In my first years of ministry as a teacher, when preparing the course Introduction to Theology, I came across an expression that helped me later to identify and name the brilliant intuition of St Vincent de Paul in the Common Rules: the practice of Jesus . [8]
Let me affirm that the Mission of the Congregation at the beginning of its fifth century of existence cannot be other than to persevere in the practice of Jesus: to prolong, to continue, to extend, to dilate, to carry forward the practice of Jesus, to remain in the practice of Jesus. To persevere in the practice of Jesus expresses and actualises the intuition of St Vincent: those of us who have been called to continue the mission of the Saviour himself, which consists primarily in evangelising the poor, must enter into his sentiments and teachings, be filled with his same spirit and walk in his same footsteps.
The apostles, who lived in community with Jesus and went through the villages announcing the Good News of the Kingdom and healing those who were afflicted with any ailment[9] , were initiated into the practice of Jesus in a connatural way: they were with him, they followed him, they did what he told them to do. After the Easter events, when the evangeliser Jesus becomes the central content of the preaching because he is the Teacher and the Lord, the Son of God who had to come into the world, in whom all peoples attain the salvation offered by God[10] , those who welcome the Good News begin a process well described in the Acts of the Apostles: to be converted, to believe that Jesus Christ is Lord, to be baptised, to become part of the community and to live in the way of Jesus.
Fr. Corpus Juan Delgado Rubio, CM
[1] Francisco. Letter to Fr Tomaž Mavrič Superior General of the Congregation of the Mission. 11 December 2024.
[2] Francis. For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation and Mission, XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, Rome, 24 November 2024, 1.
[3] Luke. 4, 16-21; cf. Isaiah 61, 1-2 and 58, 6. I draw on my study Dimensión social del jubileo. Caritas, Pamplona 2000. Cf. also: A. Vanhoye. L’anno giubilare nel vangelo di Luca: TERTIUM MILLENNIUM (1997), 22-25. Cf. also: C.M. Martini. The Evangeliser in St. Luke. Ediciones Paulinas, Bogotá 1985. A. George. The Gospel according to Luke. Verbo Divino, Estella 1976.
[4] SVes XI 391.
[5] Cf SVes IX 73.
[6] Francis. Evangelii Gaudium, 24, passim.
[7] Common Rules, introduction.
[8] H. Echegaray. La práctica de Jesús. Lima, 1986.
[9] Acts 10, 38.
[10] Cf. Acts 4, 13-14.
